Dr Amaya Bustinduy

Amaya trained in paediatrics and infectious diseases in the US and started working on helminthic infections, mainly schistosomiasis, and their impact on child health in Coastal Kenya in 2009. She is foremost a field clinical epidemiologist and has investigated a broad range of disease manifestations in children related to parasitic diseases including anaemia, malnutrition, decreased physical performance, decreased quality of life , advanced hepatosplenic disease with a special interest in developing and validating diagnostic and morbidity metric tools at the point-of-care. Other work has included profiling pro-inflammatory cytokines in schistosomiasis and drug (praziquantel) efficacy, particularly in young children.

After moving to the UK, she worked with the Liverpool of Tropical Medicine in Lake Albert Uganda testing novel morbidity point-of-care tests and the first PK/PD study of praziquantel in children. Results of that study are bound to change dosing recommendations for children living with schistosomiasis.

Research

• Female genital schistosomiasis-new diagnostics at a community level
• Clinical trials involving Pk/PD of antiparasitic drugs in children
• Point-of-care diagnostics for schistosomiasis (infection and morbidity)
• HIV-schistosomiasis and other helminthic co-infection and their impact on child health
• Preschool schistosomiasis and integration of treatment into the Integrated management of childhood illnesses (IMCI)
• Environmental enteropathy in relation to helminthic diseases